Mike's journal

So I retired (some would say for the 2nd time) from IBM in October, 2007.
I had hired in with them right out of college in 1977. I got to work on
some interesting stuff over the years - mainframes when they were hot, TCP/IP,
webservers, voice, life sciences. I was in IBM Research for several
years (just developing code) and had an office in the
801 Building
in Yorktown Heights and that was a blast. I had a really good manager
(Anne) for the final 7 years at IBM and really appreciate that.

I took 3 years off in the mid-90's to go sailing on Breakaway. During
that time I visited Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. I had heard Guatemala's
Rio Dulce referred to as "The Gringo Eater" years before I went. It seemed
that gringos would go up the river and [cue spooky music]
never return [end spooky music]. That's because
they liked it so much and simply didn't want to leave. Well, that's
what happened to me. I went there planning to stay 3 months (the length
of your initial "boat visa"). But when it came time to leave, I decided
it suited me fine and I ended up staying a year. I wish I had never
left. But the money was running out and I had to go back and work for a
little while longer. My year there was the best time of my life.

Here
is an article that tends to capture the feeling of the Rio Dulce. And
here
is a website with current events. When I was there in '94-'95 there was
almost no boat-crime.